


Graveyard Whistling

by ChatoyantPenumbra



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Atheism, Blood Drinking, Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, Heavy Angst, M/M, Vampires, World War I, a touch of Season 0 Yami, spanish influenza, vampyr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 01:18:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16316372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChatoyantPenumbra/pseuds/ChatoyantPenumbra
Summary: Death is never easy. For a vampire, it's infinitely harder.Cause if you don't believe, it can't hurt you.Inspired by Graveyard Whistling by Nothing But Thieves.





	Graveyard Whistling

**Author's Note:**

> A forewarning: 
> 
> If you aren't comfortable with:  
> • characters denying the existence of God  
> • the explicit topic of death  
> • the explicit topic of sickness (specifically the Spanish Influenza)  
> • corpses  
> • vampires  
> • blood drinking  
> • crying reading this  
> • or you're just overall in a place with your mental health where this realm of stuff would make you really uncomfortable  
> —please don't read.
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy. I haven't been able to stop listening to Graveyard Whistling by Nothing But Thieves and the more I focused on the song, the more this plot formed in my mind. The dialogue leans heavily on the lyrics. It's really dark, but right in time for Halloween right?
> 
> (Please do listen to the song before/while you read.)
> 
> Kiiiiiiind of a continuation of The Crimson Streets though I am planning on publishing a piece in the timeline between these two. So technically this is the third in that series.

“I don’t believe in God.”

 

Those words are whispered as nothing more than a solemn admission, as if Fudo Yusei sits in the confessional of the Catholic Church with a righteous, _comme il faut_ priest sitting just on the other side of the screen. But there’s no screen, no church, and the priest that he speaks to is none other than his companion of years, the one who found him in the depths of his despair as a late teenager and saved him from the gloomy streets of his hometown, even when the both of them were nothing but human.

 

Crimson eyes glint in the low light, the crescent moon above just a blurry speck in the sky with all the mist that hangs around the graveyard. They shift to him, and his hand curls around Yusei’s. Fudo knows well that the fingers are cold, and not from the weather, but with his own wrapped in leather and an interior of fur, the touch warms him from the inside despite the chills that wrack his body.

 

“If you don’t believe, it can’t hurt you.”

 

A thick cough congested with phlegm ruptures from Yusei’s lips, and he’s nearly brought to his knees with the force of the sickness. Atem’s hands are forever supportive, wrapping around his body as he grasps Yusei’s keeling form, but Fudo decides to sink to the grass anyway, his sapphire eyes staining bloodshot as they grow moist. Heat fills his face in the most uncomfortable way fathomable.

 

“What kind of God would take him from us like that?”

 

The gravestone before him is freshly engraved, the name still sharp to the eye in the tablet. Yusei’s gloved fingers reach out to the chiseled carving, trailing along the numbers of the years, and then up over the name for the umpteenth time since it’s been placed at this lot.

 

_Here Lies_

_Bruno Borelli_

_Beloved Friend and Brother_

_An Angel Endures and Returns to His True Home_

_Far Severed From The Hardships of His Human Era_

 

Tears stream freely from his eyes now, no matter how much of a small comfort Atem’s hands are around his shoulders. He coughs again, body seized with the force of it. They don’t talk about how he’ll soon follow.

 

Instead Atem leads him to his feet after many minutes of mourning, his whisper to escape the cold and return home to the warmth of the fire enough to finally compel Yusei from his catatonic state on the grass.

 

The vampire whistles the soft melody Bruno used to love humming, and the graveyard fills with the lonesome, comforting sound as they depart. Yusei’s wet lips form in a marred expression, ridden with a tremble that twists it into the unhappy marriage of a bittersweet smile and a miserable frown.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The second time Yusei says those words, he’s keeled over in bed with a sallow complexion and colorless lips, his fingers that are getting colder by the day grasping helplessly at the duvet. The doctor has come yet again, his face glum and almost jaded with the number of patients Atem knows he’s seen. After the same damn ritual, he withdraws with an identical instruction to his previous visit—for Yusei to get lots of rest, to drink two shares of hot tea and tonic, and eat as much as he can to get his strength up, but it won’t be enough. He leaves a Bible with them, unwittingly setting it directly in the palms of a vampire without the singeing or flames or screaming that the religious believe will smite their kind, and Atem thanks him for his time, closing the door softly after him. He bats not even an eyelash in the book’s direction as he returns to the bedroom and drops off the tome in the hallway, knowing his lover has no use for it.

 

“There is no God,” Yusei utters solemnly, knowingly, as he finds Atem’s palms empty when he enters. “The idea of Heaven is just… but Bruno, and all of the rest… They don’t deserve to go anywhere else. How can I accept that there’s just blackness after this, or that there’s a God who doesn’t care enough about us that all of them could die like this?”

 

They know he’s getting sicker by the day. He doesn’t have much time left.

 

“The notion… When you let it leave, it can’t hurt you.”

 

Atem strips the coat from his form, kicking off the slippers from his heels and sliding under the covers with dark skin exposed. His cold flesh is better than anything Yusei can imagine could combat his fever.

 

“You’ll get better,” Atem says, his icy fingers combing down the small of his lover’s back, the others brushing away the damp locks from Yusei’s forehead. They both know it’s a lie, but it’s sweet as it rings hollowly in the dying human’s ears.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The third time the prospect of God is brought to the fore, Atem finds himself pulled outside of the home to share a private word with the practitioner. Yusei has grown too sick to rise from the bed, and Atem’s mood has spiraled into utter desperate agony with every second he has to watch the man inch closer to passing.

 

Before the physician can even speak, the Egyptian diplomat cuts in, his clear ruby eyes stained with worry. It’s clear to anyone: he’s at wits’ end.

 

“You have to fix him, doctor. Heal him, _please_ . I’ll do anything, _pay any price_. Give him my lungs if you have to—”

 

The man merely stands there, still as if Death has taken him over instead. He offers not even a solemn shake of head, but his eyes are regretful, compassionate, tired. “He won’t get better, sir. There’s nothing more I can do for him at this point. Perhaps it’s for the best that you pray and let him go.”

 

The vampire’s face drops completely, struck in the heart that no longer beats with the unbearable and undeniable reality that he’ll lose the only person he can’t bear to see die.

 

He knew from the beginning, since his human life was torn from him in the war and he woke as the undead walking. He knew he would outlive every person he ever loved. He knew he would watch them ripped from his life, one by one, even before he knew the Spanish Influenza had begun spreading. He knew—

 

“ **_All your gods are false!_ ** ” Atem snarls, his pupils splitting vertically as the brick blasts into nothing but pebbles and dust under the claws that slam into the building. Irises glow like blood under a crimson moon, his lips draw back over pointed canines that the doctor has never before noticed. Atem is shaking with the force of his rage, every word that leaves his mouth spitting venom with the palpable exertion of his fury. He looks like a vengeful gargoyle, seething in the night.

 

“I’ve seen what’s beyond the grave—there is absolutely _nothing_ waiting for you but _darkness_ , or **_this!_ ** ” He slams a hand against his chest, so hard that any human bones would shatter under the force, and his audience releases a terrified yelp. “ _Save him or suffer the same fate,_ **_cultist!_ ** ”

 

The doctor crumples to his knees, huddling like a frightened child with his eyes as wide as the full moon above in horror when he presses as far as he possibly can into the wall at his back.

 

“ _Please, God, mercy_ —”

 

Atem wants to kill him for his insolence, kill him for making him face the reality of Yusei’s inevitable death, and his claws shake murderously at his sides as his violent mind runs over and over how easy it would be to just rip the man’s trachea from his throat. But that won’t save who he needs to live; it won’t do **_anything_ ** for him.

 

Black smoke explodes over the street, settling and crawling slowly into the nooks and crannies of the cobblestone, and nothing is left of Atem as the doctor cries in terror, alone. The vampire flees feeling Death in his throat.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The last time the topic arises is when Atem can sense the end is imminent, can nearly smell the Death lurking in the air, just inches away from clutching his most beloved by the heart and snatching him away for the rest of time.

 

Yusei’s lips are dry, his yellowed skin darkened in sickly patches that make Atem’s dead heart twist painfully in his chest every time he remembers how strong and healthy Yusei used to be. Even his tanzanite eyes that used to glow so brightly have been dulled by his weak body, battered and worn by the sickness that can only be described as ruthless.

 

The disease is virulent.

 

Yusei’s time is up.

 

“Atem…”

 

His voice is barely audible; he sounds like he’s choking on his own fluids with every word. His lover closes the space between them with an inhuman speed, at his side so the man doesn’t have to strain himself to speak. Yusei grasps for his cool hand, his own having lost the firmness it always possessed. Atem can feel himself break all the more.

 

“Do you believe in Heaven?”

 

The diplomat finds himself so tempted to sell off a lie to comfort his lover in his final moments, but he can’t bring himself to, couldn’t dare to betray him like that when this is all coming to an excruciating and rapid close.

 

“If you don’t believe, you know it can never do you harm.”

 

“I don’t want to die, Atem. I can’t—” His voice chokes in his throat, and it isn’t the phlegm and fluid in his lungs this time that stops him from speaking.

 

Atem’s lips press against his withering ones, with all the love that he wishes could anchor Yusei to this world.

 

“Close your eyes.”

 

“I can’t leave you,” Yusei gasps, struggling, but the hot moisture Atem feels against his lips isn’t his lover’s.

 

It’s his own.

 

“I can’t leave you like this. The life that we imagined...” His dark brows quiver, and Atem can see all of the fear he’s been hiding, guarding, shoving under the surface this whole time just to lessen the pain he knows Atem is experiencing. “Not like this. I’m less afraid of the nothingness; I can’t keep any of my promises—”

 

A sob rips from Atem’s lips, and the tears run unbridled down his cheeks. For the first time since he was turned, he feels his face grow hot from the misery.

 

He contemplates something he swore to himself he would _never_ do.

 

“I don’t want you to go,” he cries, the might of his sobs forcing his head into a bow against Yusei’s frail shoulder, and with the little strength the man has left, Atem feels similarly cold fingers graze his cheeks, wiping the moisture tenderly away.

 

“Help me stay.”

 

His breath is ragged and muffled by the sloshing in his lungs. Atem knows it’s upon him. A final wish. His final words. Yusei’s body will give out in only seconds.

 

With a desperate sob, Atem violently shoves all of his sense and reluctance out of the way and bites sharply down onto his own tongue, cutting it cleanly open. Cold, metallic blood pours into his mouth, and his lips connect in a final kiss with his lover’s, nudging the human jaw open to receive him. He barely notices the weak hands that tangle into his wine tresses until their lips break for just a moment to yield his voice.

 

Yusei’s eyes no longer open, but his heart still beats, weakly, faintly.

 

“Let it take you under, Yusei. Feel your worries disappear.”

 

Their tongues meet one last time, and with the very last ounce of his strength Atem can feel Yusei swallow.

 

Then, he goes limp. After years of beating strong, his heart at last stops, never to resume for the rest of time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Death isn’t an easy reality.

 

It’s riddled with fear, with suffering, with misery, and with pain. For those on the receiving end, it is just that: an end. For those who have to watch and live on, it leaves them completely broken, tearing the breath from their lungs and the strength from their bodies until all that’s left is a miserable shell of what used to be.

 

Atem cries for days.

 

For a vampire, death is ironically all the more painful.

 

What he’s done can never be undone.

 

Yusei’s dead body remains in the bed, almost exactly as it was at the moment of his expiry. Atem spends countless hours at his side, never once moving. He doesn’t need food. He doesn’t need rest. For what seems like millennia, he just watches. Waits. His cold fingers touch the dead ones exactly the same temperature and wrap affectionately around the withered palm.

 

The process can take anywhere from hours to years. He’s heard of some who have woken from their deathly slumber after whole decades of dying with vampiric blood in the body. He’s heard that it all depends on the strength of the vampire who gave it. But it’s only a rumor. Atem can’t be sure.

 

Nor can he be sure about how long he has to wait.

 

Worse yet, some never wake. More rumors of the strength of the vampire's bloodline. But he’s determined to spend every second he can in wait, settling on only leaving if his body is in desperate, irrefutable need of human blood. This will all be pointless if he dies too, but he _has_ to be here when Yusei wakes.

 

If… he wakes.

 

The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway becomes unbearable, but it’s the only way Atem can keep track of the days that pass.

 

Three days go by. But Yusei’s body does not decompose.

 

Two more painful sets of day and night tick past. Yusei’s face and skin are no longer withered.

 

Thirteen more excruciating rotations of the hour hand around the clock; six and a half more days.

 

Atem hasn’t moved a muscle in over a week from his lie next to the body, the comfortable duvet and mattress doing little to soothe his biting anxiety. His hand is still clutched around Yusei’s, frozen in place as if they’ve been lying there like that since the dawn of humanity, or perhaps, the dawn of vampirism.

 

Yusei’s fingers twitch finally. Atem’s eyes snap open to find awaiting gold where sapphire used to be.

 

His lips feel the same as they ever did when he was nothing more than a healthy human being, but warm breath no longer meets Atem’s mouth when they kiss.

 

He quickly finds that Yusei is stronger than ever before, stronger than even him. Atem gasps against his shoulder, fingers dragging along immortal skin in apology.

 

“I can’t give you the afterlife you want.”

 

A smile touches gold eyes. “You already have.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know how you guys felt about this!


End file.
